Quirk removal

[Moanerette]

Playing Crawl tiles has twice almost made me jump out of my skin with a pleasurable jolt of shock/fear, like that experienced upon first glimpsing a creeper in Minecraft.

One of these occasions* was the first time I encountered a mimic. I walked up to a door and without warning it transformed into a grinning monster straight out of Yellow Submarine. It was great, and hair-raising, and the character barely survived.

Now mimics don't do anything, the item just turns out to be a mirage and fades into thin air. If you're playing quickly you might not even notice them. I'm guessing they changed because in their pomp they were traps it was impossible to spot, hence a potential unavoidable death. Fair enough, but the game has lost something memorable.

Similarly, I was saddened to witness two approaching jellies ignore a perfectly slurpable crocodile corpse, as they now only consume unseen items. This change does puzzle me; it makes jellies less likely to factor into a player's tactical decisions (can I/is it advisable to get to and kill the jelly before it slurps that wand? etc.) while making them a little less interesting. Were players finding it frustrating to see jellies eat items they wanted? That would seem to me a 'part of the game' frustration, like mutations or heavy drain.

I don't intend this to be a restatement of flavour vs. gameplay; I accept primacy of the latter. But the oddities are what help make Crawl so good, and sometimes that's worth a bit of awkwardness. Like double albums that are flabby, but that flabbiness means that the ingredients are always slopping around and making fun new combinations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vincS_wW0xM).

*The other one was first encountering an Oklob. Yes, I am easily pleased.

[Sandman25]

I believe mimics were removed because it was optimal to get adjacent to every door before autoexploring.
Jellies can destroy stashes if they can eat seen items, which is more evil than losing some tactical depth IMHO.

[celem]

Yes the change where a jelly wont eat what you have seen is made necessary by the stashing side of the equation. If any non-artifact left on the floor can be eaten then we're right back to the L:2 stash. Jellies eating something you wanted infront of your eyes would be fine, and fun. But we cant really have them do that without having them be the universal dungeon vacuum that eats all the books you might want later but cant carry now. (maybe let them eat seen items again but remove them from random (post-entry) generation?)

[dowan]

I'd be fine if jellies would only not eat items that the player had actually carried, to keep the interesting situations where you see a jelly near something you want, and have to play in a risky manner to get the item before the jelly does.

Also, on that topic, seen corpses don't need to be immune to jellies, since there's no such thing as a corpse stash.

I don't know if this would be more difficult to code than the existing version, but I think it would allow the old interesting tactical effects with none of the stashing garbage.

[wheals]

I think one issue is that jellies heal/may split on eating stuff, so that might make it "optimal" to pick up and drop everything so that a jelly infestation doesn't result. They're harmless enough monsters that I doubt it would ever be worth the turns, but it's something to think about.

[Sar]

I miss mimics.

[duvessa]

It would certainly be optimal to do that with any item you have the slightest chance of wanting in the future.

Other monsters don't eat corpses anymore either, do they? I couldn't get them to do it in wizmode.

[argonaut]

It might be better if jellies only ate objects in view. That way if your stash gets eaten you'd see it! Plus the healing/splitting becomes relevant.

[dowan]

I was thinking of something similar, where jellies can only eat items that haven't been in and out of LOS of the player, so jellies could eat things you haven't seen, and things you are seeing for the first time, but not stuff you've seen and walked away from. But here is the problem:

I see a nice object, and a jelly. OH NOES! Do I try to kill the jelly? Do I try to grab the object?
Or do I just take a step back, moving the item out of LOS, and protecting it from the evil jelly.

In other words, it sort of eliminates the tactical reason that made jellies eating things worthwhile.

[MainiacJoe]

If any non-artifact left on the floor can be eaten then we're right back to the L:2 stash.

I'm an L:2 stasher playing 0.16 and I dislike it. In what version does this jelly change occur?

[and into]

I understand and accept the reasons for those changes, but like the OP I have a soft spot for some of the quirky things that have (generally with good reason) been removed.

The first time I encountered a mimic was memorable, and a few more interesting situations resulted when mimics got constriction. I also have some positive funny memories of crazy stuff that happened with jellies. One of the most intense but also most ridiculous situations I had in Crawl involved a jelly and centaur team in open terrain, where the jelly kept eating the centaur's arrows as I tried to retreat. Just when it looked like I would be pincushioned or else engulfed by the Blob, the jelly squelched in just the right way such that it blocked the centaur's line of fire, and because of this I just barely managed to escape into a corridor with a few hit points (I didn't have ?fog or ?teleport yet), with the centaur getting caught behind the slow-moving jellies until I got to some stairs. It was all very slapstick—you could have scored the scene to the Benny Hill theme music—but also very fun and intense. Two questionable mechanics in Crawl, item-eating jellies and non-mulching ammo, combined in a meaningful and fun way on that particular occasion.

However, for every novel instance in which jelly eating has been memorable, there have been many dozens of games where I had to take weird stashing measures that were obtrusive and definitely not fun. So, on the whole, it is good that these "quirky" things have been removed.

[dpeg]

I understand the sentiment, but I am pretty sure these wheels will not be turned back. However, I would encourage to think about ways to reintroduce a mechanic you like (e.g. mimics) while avoiding the reason that got it remove from the game.

Example: mimics are cool, because the very idea of being chased and attacked by items or furniture is funny (to some of us).

Problem: in principle, we have to check all items and dungeon features for their non-mimicness, to make sure you're not in an unpleasent surprise should things get hairy later on.

Potential solution: (a) nothing *is* a mimic, everything can randomly *become* a mimic.
I.e. you might have hug-checked all walls on your level, but nonetheless, all of a sudden some adjacent wall might become a mimic and attack you.

Drawbacks of that: 1. Encourages players to avoid items and features when traveling (only for properly paranoid players, but obviously we assume she is very paranoid).
2. The funny "item/feature attacks me" tends to occur later than before, so the chance to have fun interactions with monsters is lower.

Verdict: idea dismissed.

Next proposal: (b) Features that the player cannot avoid can become mimics at any time.
As far as I see, this would mean staircases: so whenever you use a staircase, it might decide to mimicify itself and attack. Obviously, the last </> staircase is mimic-proof.

Another one: (c) any feature in view might decide to become a mimic. A newly born mimic can blink to the player and constrict him. Chances to do so are higher with monsters around.
This does slightly encourage fighting in the open, but that's okay because it entails enough problems on its own.

And so on.... Bottom line: I think that there's design space for lots of fun things, but it is a bit of an effort to get a proper design. Particularly in the two examples mentioned (item loss out of LOS, mimics), I am certain that good solutions can be found. Note that e.g. for mimics, it'd be okay to make them very rare, but then also tough and memorable.

[duvessa]

Next proposal: (b) Features that the player cannot avoid can become mimics at any time.
As far as I see, this would mean staircases: so whenever you use a staircase, it might decide to mimicify itself and attack. Obviously, the last </> staircase is mimic-proof.

So to be safe, you go up and down two of the staircases on every level until they turn into mimics, so that you make the third staircase mimic-proof?

[pickled_heretic]

Verdict: idea dismissed.

I really just do not understand how you guys think at all...

[dpeg]

Next proposal: (b) Features that the player cannot avoid can become mimics at any time.
As far as I see, this would mean staircases: so whenever you use a staircase, it might decide to mimicify itself and attack. Obviously, the last </> staircase is mimic-proof.

So to be safe, you go up and down two of the staircases on every level until they turn into mimics, so that you make the third staircase mimic-proof?

Good point.

Note that by doing so you are already losing some flexibility: you turn the small chance that a staircase flakes on you into a smaller number of staircases.

Exercise for the reader: expand on this to find a mechanic that punishes this behaviour. (I have one, but I only gave that example to show how I think about design.) Obviously, things can easily get out of hand and the cost of the feature would be too high.

[onget]

Abyss exit mimic / silver rune mimic might be good.

[jejorda2]

What about an enemy with an "Enrage doors" or "Rouse Books" ability, so when you see that Kobold Rabble-Rouser, you know the potion on the floor may attack you?

You get the silly effect of attack-by-item, but it is limited to when an enemy is in sight.

We already have sprigs druids, and plants attacking don't feel silly in a fun way. It's a lot like smite. Maybe the tile plays into it?

I guess I'm bringing back Terpsichore, who was excluded unless you could pick up all the weapons before she woke up.

[celem]

If any non-artifact left on the floor can be eaten then we're right back to the L:2 stash.

I'm an L:2 stasher playing 0.16 and I dislike it. In what version does this jelly change occur?

Its a trunk thing I think, ie 0.17. Like you I was an L:2 stasher, now I just drop stuff in clumps on various dungeon floors. The furthest my stashing behaviour extends now is to dump desirable items on the branch staircases, so that I never have to enter branches to find what im looking for. (i leave nothing in orc/elf/lair/s-branches, all back to the d-floor where the branch starts) Has knocked 2-5 thousand turns off my 3-rune runs. Later in the game (V/U/onwards) I almost never back up to the Lair, stuff I want is probably on D14/15, at worst its on d9-12 where the L/O stairs are.

The change has also meant a change to the way i run auto-pickup. On entering the dungeon for instance I set every ammo type as auto-pick on every character type, then drop it in clumps when I need space. If I later want to pickup that type of launcher the ammo is gathered already.

Abyss exit mimic / silver rune mimic might be good.

I think I might cry if we had abyssal exit mimics. Silver rune mimic is a thing, and its painful, suddenly you have to clear another 1/4 of Vault:5. I've also had barnacled mimics, almost always when running a character that is attempting to ninja the rune by digging through one of those circular vaults. Again painful. But I like rune mimics. Abyssal exit is possibly a step too far, most characters seeing one of those arn't merely 'happy' to have found a rune, they are 'ecstatic' that they are not going to die.

[celem]

  Code:

You throw a stone. The stone hits the fire giant!
_The fire giant picks up a scroll of identify.

Now I'm confused. Behaviour seems to have recently changed yet again in Trunk. Monsters are picking up seen items, I noticed a bunch of mobs earlier reading scrolls of summoning, which i assumed they had picked up out of sight, but this guy just pulled an item from the floor (and its an item entirely useless to a mob). Guess i'll have to go trawl the commits again and see whats actually going on.

[PleasingFungus]

I think I might cry if we had abyssal exit mimics. Silver rune mimic is a thing, and its painful, suddenly you have to clear another 1/4 of Vault:5. I've also had barnacled mimics, almost always when running a character that is attempting to ninja the rune by digging through one of those circular vaults. Again painful. But I like rune mimics. Abyssal exit is possibly a step too far, most characters seeing one of those arn't merely 'happy' to have found a rune, they are 'ecstatic' that they are not going to die.

I considered adding pan exit mimics at one point, but I decided i did not want to be responsible for the loss of human life.

  Code:

You throw a stone. The stone hits the fire giant!
_The fire giant picks up a scroll of identify.

Now I'm confused. Behaviour seems to have recently changed yet again in Trunk. Monsters are picking up seen items, I noticed a bunch of mobs earlier reading scrolls of summoning, which i assumed they had picked up out of sight, but this guy just pulled an item from the floor (and its an item entirely useless to a mob). Guess i'll have to go trawl the commits again and see whats actually going on.

You hadn't actually seen that item; it was at the bottom of a stack.

[advil]

Abyss exit mimic / silver rune mimic might be good.

I think I might cry if we had abyssal exit mimics. Silver rune mimic is a thing, and its painful, suddenly you have to clear another 1/4 of Vault:5. I've also had barnacled mimics, almost always when running a character that is attempting to ninja the rune by digging through one of those circular vaults. Again painful. But I like rune mimics. Abyssal exit is possibly a step too far, most characters seeing one of those arn't merely 'happy' to have found a rune, they are 'ecstatic' that they are not going to die.

There at least used to be abyssal exit mimics (and I'm pretty sure silver rune mimics are still around). I have a very memorable death where I was racing to an exit in an open area with a some stuff following me, then it turned out to be a mimic and I got surrounded by a whole bunch of golden eyes, confused (and reconfused many times, I don't think I had an unconfused turn after the fight started, despite burning all my curing), and died.

  Code:

The ravenous portal mimic is almost destroyed.
The ravenous portal mimic hits you but does no damage. x2
The ravenous portal mimic constricts you.
The bone dragon bites you but does no damage.
The bone dragon claws you but does no damage.
The bone dragon tramples you.
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
You stumble backwards!
The ravenous portal mimic loses its grip on you.
The golden eye blinks!
The golden eye blinks at you.
You are more confused.
The golden eye blinks at you.
You are more confused.
The golden eye blinks!
Ouch!
The thrashing horror tramples you but does no damage.
The thrashing horror barely misses you. The golden eye blinks at you.
You resist. The bone dragon bites you!
You die...

[Moanerette]

Oh yeah. Those are the sort of situations that if I can somehow escape them I feel a bit elated.

I forgot to mention corpse sacrifices. Trivial as they may be, I really miss corpse sacrifices, at least on the overtly bloodthirsty gods. Blood and souls for Makhleb!

[duvessa]

corpses arent blood or souls

[1010011010]

Mimics could exist as chests, which only pounce on you if you open the chest. But that would mean chests existing (probability normally enter a shop like menu) which don't really add to the game at all.

[Siegurt]

corpses arent blood or souls

Arent corpses like containers for blood and souls? I always thought of sacrifice under makky as a sort of blood and soul pinata. Blow up the corpse and free the blood and souls inside for demonic god consumption, like 5 year olds gobbling up candy...

[duvessa]

no, when you killed the monster most of the blood and souls leaked out. theres still a little bit of blood left in the corpse so vampires can drink from it, but makhleb doesnt want it, it would be like eating an apple and then giving the core to someone else, sure there might be a little bit of edible apple left on it, but mostly it would just be insulting